But once the ferryman, still out in the Styx’s currents, spied them moving across the silent grove and turning toward the bank, he greets them first with a rough abrupt rebuke: “Stop, whoever you are at our river’s edge, in full armor too! Why have you come? Speak up, from right where you are, not one step more! This is the realm of shadows, sleep and drowsy night. The law forbids me to carry living bodies across in my Stygian boat. I’d little joy, believe me, 450 when Hercules came and I sailed the hero over, or Theseus, Pirithous, sons of gods as they were with their high and mighty power.
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